I can now cross my uterus off the list of things I have seen

Yesterday, I became a woman. Well, it depends on your definition of becoming a woman, but yesterday, I took one step further into adult womanhood. I went to the gynecologist for the first time EVER. Well, I was dragged there kicking and screaming and I called friends and my mum going, "Nooooooooooooooooooo. Why do I have to go? I haven't been in 25 years and my uterus hasn't fallen out yet" and more noises of a similar nature. But Diabolique, who is leaving for foreign shores soon (which makes me very sad. I hate foreign shores! Damn you, shores!) has been going through a battery of tests to make sure she's healthy and she was all like, "You MUST see a gynae, eM! What have you been doing the last couple of years? You're 25!"

"I have to clean up the cat litter," I said, sulkily, "And I have some errands to run. But now I know where it is! Yay! I'll totally go on my own."

"Um," she said, "Right. Just get your ass here."

"But she'll look at my hoo ha!" I wailed.

(Minor digression: After the appointment yesterday, as I followed Diabolique around for all the other things she had to do, I kept going "Hoo ha! Va-jay-jay! See, I can say that in public and no one will know what I'm talking about! Hoo ha!" She rolled her eyes at me. "Girlie bits?" I offered, "No? Okay--hoo ha!")

Anyway, so no one has seen the girlie bits except for you know, people I'm intimate with and me. I saw a gynae as a sort of therapist/mother confessor, how I would cross my legs and talk to her about sex and stuff and she'd be all woman of the world-ish and pat me on the arm and we'd be BFF, like, totally MFEO. Although, remember that Sex And The City episode where Miranda has chlamydia, and she has to call up every single person she's had sex with going, "I have chlamydia, have you been tested?" So of course, that flashed through my mind, images of me going, "I have chlamydia" and no one ever sleeping with me EVER again and dooooooooom and so on. Worse, was the stray nagging thought at how long it had been since anyone had been near the va-jay-jay, and what if my body was preconditioned to, you know, be aroused, by anyone fiddling around down there. Oh my god, what if the gynae thought I was the kind of person who went to gynaes to get my rocks off? What if I had to pee?

I get there, and I'm a little earlier than Diabolique, so she makes me trot upstairs and get an appointment, with the doctor on duty. "Um," I said, reading off the board in the front, "It says here she's a child specialist." "Well, maybe she does OB-GYN check ups too," said Diabolique, "My friend went to her. Just go get us both an appointment."

So I walk into the reception area and I mumble, "Check up" to the nurses there and they're all like, SCARLET WOMAN HERE FOR AN ABORTION, but nod and tell me to take a seat. "I do get the woman doctor, right?" I asked hopefully. "Oh no, she's a paediatrician, you get the man," they said. Horror-struck, I called Diabolique. "It's a man! And he's going to look at my hoo ha! Let's leave!" "They say men have gentler touches," she said thoughtfully, "And maybe he won't even go close to your hoo ha. They don't always, you know." She wasn't letting me leave. I sat there, still getting scorches of SCARLET WOMAN, from couples with babies and then Diabolique came, and we chatted about the drama that was my life and hers, and it all became very cosy and two chicks at a beauty parlour, when the doctor came in. He was sort of middle-aged and he nodded at us and ohgoodlord, we're going in together? Diabolique patted my knee, and I'm sure she was wondering at this point what possessed her to bring me. We go in together, I'm thinking this is what lamb to the slaughter means and I get it now and I swear to god, v-jay, if you're thinking of ANYTHING sex related, I will personally deprive you of a vibrator for a month.

I got to go first. Of course.

"Smoke?"
"Yes."
"How many?"
"Um.. six or seven a day?" (When I'm not drinking, which I didn't mention)
"Drink?"
"Yeeeee-ah, sort of."
"How much?"
"Oh, every weekend."
"How much?"
"Wellllllll.. it averages out to one or two a day."
"A day?"
"Yuh."
Diabolique pats my knee again.
We go on to having a conversation about my period, blah di blah, any problems, sexually active?
"Well, not active active."
"Have you had intercourse in the last two months?"
"No," I said reluctantly.
"Ever been pregnant?"
"No."
"Okay, go behind that curtain for an exam."

An exam? Seriously? I thought we were done! But being the sort of person who attempts to follow doctor's orders, I went behind the curtain, the nurse made me take off my jeans and underwear and lie back, knees up, while she draped a sheet over my legs. Kill me now. And, of course, there was a breast exam, and of course, my kurta was too tight to pull upwards, so there was some yanking and of course, through this whole thing I focussed on a spot on the wall singing Under my umbrella-ella-ella- ay-ay-ay in my head.

Turns out, I didn't have to worry about being, um, remotely erotically charged. If this was a gentle touch, I bet women are like Marquis De Sade. There was some probing, a long dildo type thing was inserted and some more probing and then he said, "Look." I looked, and he was pointing at a TV monitor. "That's your uterus." I felt like I was in one of those movies where they show the baby's heartbeat for like the first time and I was all awwwwwwww, look how pretty. (Only, of course, I couldn't find it. There were grey spots and black spots.) Then I got to get off, and Diabolique went in, and we were both pronounced clean and healthy. "Use a condom during sex," he told me. Duh. "And come back in ten days so we can do a cervical exam."

So, I have a healthy va-jay-jay. And I don't have to go back for another year. (What? You thought I was going to have my cervix examined? Really?)

ps: So, Facebook (which I love) has this new application called Superlatives (we have a lot of time on our hands--my friends and I) and basically, it lets you nominate your friends for things--like Most Likely To Wind Up Drunk In Ireland or Most Likely To Be Distracted By A Shiny Object. So, anyway, your Superlatives are on your profile page, along with which one you have the most of. Guess what mine is? Guess? No? Most Likely To Be A Drama Queen. At first I was all like drama queen? c'est moi? Never! But, on reflection, I concede. I so am a drama queen. It makes life more interesting.

Things I Just Thought

(So I can prove to you exactly how random my brain is)

* The blue Sarojini Nagar skirt with the blue top Ma got me. Heels? Maybe. The word skirt is funny. I never really thought about it before, but skirt. Were people stoned when they invented these words? Stoned even. Is it supposed to feel like a stone hit your head?

* Ooh, maybe I need spectacles.

* If thunder thunders, why doesn't lightening lighten? Lightening flashes something something something. Wait, where's my iTunes icon? Oh there it is.

* How can someone who is TWENTY FUCKING FIVE still get zits? Seriously. Considering I was smooth faced as a baby's bottom all through my adolescence. Are babies bottoms really smooth? Investigate.

* I make good coffee. Is it time for me to get waxed again? No, that's just some ingrown hair. Ew. Although if I poke it, it comes out all curly. Is that weird? This one time, I was lighting a cigarette and the lighter wouldn't come on so I held it near my face and singed my eyelashes. The erstwhile Nonboyfriend said I had the longest eyelashes EVER. I tried to measure them the other day, but they curl at the tips, so it's hard. Do people with curly hair have curly eyelashes?


* Erstwhile is a good word.

* As is rapport.


* Do I have enough money to get drunk tonight? No, I don't think so. It's almost September! Whee! I wonder where my damn credit card is. I applied for it in JULY. Although I'm not very good with the whole paying later thing.

* I really should shower.

* I wonder why no one eats cats. Or dogs. Way back when they were evolving, who picked chickens and goats and cows and decided cats aren't good eating? I think it's because they're just so damn cute. But evil. My cat, to announce his displeasure at me leaving him for TWO WHOLE DAYS, pissed all over my bed. Stupid animal. He didn't even touch Shark Tooth's bed, and he loves him just as much. I'd eat him served up with a nice gravy and french fries right now, only he's being all rumbly and purry and it's hard to hate him.

*Mmmmmmmmmmm. French fries.

We Are All Debate Club Mood-y (skip, if you prefer the party posts)

On the plane ride over from Delhi (six am. Dear god, why did I think that was a good idea?) I was reading Gloria Steinem's Outrageous Acts And Everyday Rebellions. Primarily because my mother gave it to me, saying I would enjoy it, and also because I try to do my heavier reading on planes. (I don't read a lot of nonfiction, and I'm usually so lazy about my reading, I will pick up stuff I've read a million times before, rather than tackle something new). But this book was surprisingly light. Easy. And it made a lot of sense.

I went to this college for women. It was an excellent college--hardly any male professors, except one dashing young JNU type who was the object of much giggling and enthusiastic young things. We were taught from the beginning that the power to do anything lay with us, something which you could either embrace, like a lot of us did, or reject, rolling your eyes, going, "Feminists!" which a lot of us did too. Outside college, even after we graduated, we were the victims of many attacks, mainly by men we met, going, "Ohhhhh, you went to that college." and making a face. Once or twice, I tried to get them to explain and they'd say, "Oh, man, you guys are all so elitist." Others would say, "Haan, I know your type, Fabindia and Goldflake cigarettes." Feminism was never mentioned, but it was implied. It was a dirty word, something to be used with derision. Because, dahlinks, to be a feminist was never ever to be feminine. The two just didn't go together.


I never really truly thought of myself as a feminist. I mean, I've been guilty of using "being a chick" to get what I want sometimes. I like it when men are chivalrous. I let them carry my bags when they're heavy. I realise I am better at nurturing than men are, just like they're better at the fixing things stuff. But, I know if I was thrown in a world with no men, as I am frequently, I can manage perfectly fine on my own. Having a male flatmate means I get certain things done easier, but I've lived with women, and we managed. We were fine. When Mouse was in the hospital, I did my best to get her discharged, but they only really listened when I called a male friend and asked him to intervene. For him doors opened, paperwork got done rapidly and we were out of there. It was unfair, supremely, completely unfair, but it made my day that much easier if I bowed to the system.


The one way I am a feminist though, is when I write. I HATE the label "women writers". Like, what the fuck? Are there "men writers"? There are not. There are "writers" and "women writers". Like what I write is equal to say, a detailed history of cows in Croatia. A niche subject. Woman stuff. I know if you're a woman, you've heard a guy say, "Uhhh.. have you got your period or something?" when you lose your temper. Is this not annoying? Fuck annoying, is it not also the most condescending thing you've ever heard? Male actors are better paid, male writers get bigger advances and those of us unfortunate enough to be born with a uterus are put into a special category. If we write about sex, we're 'chick-lit', if we write about families, we're 'endearing and poignant new voices.' Blurb writer? I can tell you where to stuff that poignant.

I got all militant on your ass there for a bit, and that might surprise you, because this is not a subject I usually write about. Or talk about even. It's not that I don't care, it's that I don't care enough. Consider my advantages: I'm an only child, and therefore have been brought up as an equal. I'm from India's English speaking/educated elite, which means I meet a certain kind of person normally, brought up to be liberated, I do pretty much as I please, not hampered by my gender. And yet, there are subtle things I notice every now and then. Such as, if I'm on an assignment, and meeting someone not from my background, they'll address themselves to my male photographer. Such as, hearing of a woman who sleeps around with frequency, referred to as a slut. By women too, by the way. Such as hearing, "Oh man, how do women stay friends with each other, you guys bitch all the time". They're little things, usually brushed away by laughing or rolling my eyes, or saying, "You're SUCH an MCP" but they're betraying things. Do I think of them as true statements? I am out of sorts during my period. Sometimes, I don't like to make a move on someone because they'll think I'm a slut. Sometimes I judge promiscuous women. Sometimes, I use words like promiscuous. Sometimes, I am angry with my women friends for analysing and renaanlysing and interpreting insults and talking about each other. Sometimes, I do that too. But don't men do that too? Okay, so you don't have an excuse of your hormones acting up every month, but I know plenty of men who will periodically (periodically. heh.) throw hissy fits. I know men who delight in bitching. And I know men who sleep around too. (Only, the oldest irony in the book: men who sleep around are players, women who sleep around are sluts. We're the cow, with the free milk, and they're the buyers.)

This post isn't really meant to prove anything, just a sort of talking out loud to myself. I'd appreciate a weigh in, especially from my male readers. Why does the word feminist scare you guys so much? And why can't feminists be feminine?

The Physics Of Further Randomness (Lesson 15: What We Blog About When We're Not Getting Any)

* As you've probably realised, not very much is going on in my life right now. No pocketfuls of lovers, no deep , dark romances and worst of all--absolutely no sex. Sigh. Right now, I'm drinking coffee with honey, having run out of sugar and being too lazy to order any, and it tastes rather strange. Sweaty almost. Unpleasant, but one must have one's coffee. Still, in the future, I would not recommend it. Why is it tea with honey tastes all glorious and rainy-day-ish and coffee with honey tastes likes old socks?

*I have a full house at the moment. There's me and Mouse (who are complete slobs, seriously, having always lived with anally neat people, I'm used to the boundaries of my mess reaching the limits of their clean spaces, and their organisation shaming me into tidying up every now and then. Now, we both live with laundry on the couch, speaker wires entangled on the coffee table, newspapers piling up and so on. Very lived in.) And then this morning, Shark Tooth's friend, let's call him Uday, arrived, to stay with us for a couple of days while he's in Bombay. One more mattress, and we've reached maximum occupancy. But this also means I have to clean up the house.

* The Iggy was passing through town and had a five am flight, so in order to amuse her (read: ply her with alcohol before she left) we took her to China House, which I must say, has lost most of its charm for me. It takes about fortyfive minutes to get a drink, it's much too crowded and you have to do the whole waiting-at-the-entrance thing. Meh. Too much effort. Although it must be mentioned that once we were in, I saw a midget (no, really, she reached my hip) and a giant (I reached his hip) and I was all huh. The midget was holding hands with a not unattractive man, and really, when dwarves can find love (sorry, little people) I see no reason why I can't. Also, at the table across from us was Queenie Dhody, and they ordered an entire bottle of champagne and left the whole thing there. I was tempted to steal it, but no one let me. Seriously, what a waste of good alcohol!

* Diabolique (don't ask, this is the pseudonym she chose) and I went shopping for her yesterday. Well, mainly for her, but I did pick up some t-shirts that fit so well you can see the outline of my belly stud. Anyway, so she had a craving for panipuri and we stopped off at a chaat guy she had been going to since she was a baby, and he handed me the first one and reader, I choked. Not only did I choke, tears formed in my eyes from the spices. Where are my hardy South Indian genes? I eat chillis with EVERYTHING! Clearly, I'm becoming American by osmosis. Both Diabolique and the chaat guy were very amused, he made mine a little less spicy (less spicy! Dear god, I'm the one who puts spice on top of spice) and all went well thereafter.

* In other news, Saturday and Sunday will be spent in the city of my birth. Well, okay, not of my birth birth, but the city I've been in since I was three weeks old. Good enough. Mouse's coming with me, although she plans to do a day trip to Agra, and I've had just about enough of the Taj Mahal for one lifetime, so I will stay in Delhi eating lots of food, drinking lots of drinks and catching up on everyone's lives minus me. If you know me in real life, call for coordinates. A weekend isn't a terribly long time, so everyone's going to have to suck it up and all be in the same place at the same time.

And now, stuff I've seen recently. Or read. Or somethinged.

The Simpsons Movie: I only have one thing to say: Spiderpig, spiderpig, does whatever a spiderpig does, does he swing from a vine? No he doesn't, he's just a pig.

Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Le sigh. Finally the ending. The epilogue though was fairly obvious, though I had a hard time keeping all those kids straight. I felt the worst about Hedwig, really.

The Family Stone: (which is not new but Mouse and Diablolique and I watched it together on Friday) I realise how much I like Sarah Jessica Parker. I think of a sundry Goan holiday taken with a sundry exboyfriend. I decide never EVER to go to my boyfriend's large house for Christmas unless I am willing to smother my personality. And I think dating your sister/boyfriend's boyfriend/brother is slightly creepy.

The Blue Umbrella: Nice. Sad but. I saw Irrfan Khan in the audience, bringing my Bollywood sightings up to five now. Or is it four? What can I say--I have no life.

Betty Crocker's Pancake Mix: Fabulous. Mouse and I have been completely ODing. Not for breakfast as one would assume but like a midnight snack around one or two in the morning.

Until next time, this is your friendly radio jockey telling you to drive safe, eat well and drink lots of water.

Rubbing Shoulders

We all have party favour stories. The ones we tell when we're in a group of relatively new people, and we're not yet drunk, but drifting away on a haze of happy alcoholism, wanting to impress. Wanting the entire room to stand spellbound for a moment by the Adventures Of You. There's no greater thrill than having a good party favour story. It stands you in good stead through various parties, it breaks the ice for you and best of all, if it's not a time-bound story, it helps locate you as the person you want to be. The Guy Who Bravely Battled Adversity In Ghana. The Girl Who Was Picked Up By Cops Who Thought She Was A Hooker, Only To Stand Up To Them Defiantly. The One Where You Were Drunk (Oh My God, So Very Drunk) And Wound Up Partying With Roger Waters. Good stories, all, mostly told with some sort of humour or irony, and which will earn you backpats and drinks and you're-such-a-rockstar! comments.

My favourite party favour story actually happened a long time ago. I think it was the year I had just turned 23, and The Vagina Monologues had just come to India. Bombay was where the big show was--we had heard Marisa Tomei was a part of the cast---and so it had been all over the papers for a couple of days. Naturally, then, by the time it came to Delhi, it was tired news, old news, and most papers sent their youngest correspondents to see whether they could get a small page 3 filler item. My paper didn't even send me with a photographer. "PR pictures," said my editor, and when the editor asks for PR pictures you know your story is pretty much doomed to either not run at all or run in a tiny box with no byline. The tabloid I worked for then was pretty big on their party pages, they had two dedicated party reporters, and I was the theatre/book person, which sounds like a really big deal, but not so much, because out of the six features pages assigned to us, one went to movies, two to parties, the centrespread to "important" stories and I got random little stories scattered wherever there wasn't a party piece. Anyway. I had already seen the play in London, with my father a couple of years before when it first released. I had heard a lot about it, and when I saw the posters advertising it in London, I begged for us to go, and my dad being the sort of guy who prides himself on not flinching when the word 'vagina' comes out of his nineteen-year-old daughter's mouth, agreed, and we went together. It was an awesome show (Sophie Dahl!) but every time they made references to "loving your vagina" or even "my hoochie-scrotcher" I cringed in the seat next to him. (And seeing as the play is called The Vagina Monologues, you can imagine there's a lot of cringing). My dad seemed to enjoy it though, but I was looking forward to watching the play without the presence of a parent.

I took Dee with me, having two passes and no photographer, and we went to the India Habitat Centre, I introduced myself to the PR saying I'd need pictures and we happily sat back and watched the show. Good fun. Afterwards there was a cocktail thingy happening up on the terrace, but before we headed for that, I thought I'd join the line of TV reporters on stage, you know , get a quick quote for my 150 word story and we'd carry on with the rest of our plans for the night. TV reporters are never kind to their poor print cousins. The number of times I have been banged on the head with a camera (being about the same height) probably explains the sudden blackouts I keep having. Anyway, having learnt my lesson at a young and tender age, I preferred to stand back and watch as the TV guys did their thing, before swooping forward with the rest of the print journos and getting my quote. Most were clustered around Mahabanoo Mody-Kotwal, the director of the play, but a few were around the other actors.

"Let's go," said Dee.
"Hang on, hang on, let these guys finish," I said to her, and then she wandered off to say hello to someone and I was left standing on stage, looking around, wishing the bloody cameras would move already.
Which is when I spotted this nondescript looking white woman standing off to the side of the stage, watching the television cameras and smiling to herself. She looked familiar, I thought, letting my gaze wander again, and then, you know how it is when someone looks familiar, you have to keep looking at them and looking at them while you flip through your mental portfolio to see where they fit in. I examined her again. Lessee, mousy brown hair, not unpretty features, wearing a white kurta and khaki pants--typical dip wife attire, I thought. It must be someone I met at an embassy party. But there was something niggling at the back of my mind, this was more than the usual I've-seen-her-somewhere-before feeling. This was a sense of absurd familiarity, like we had hung out on occassion, gotten drunk somewhere or something. I gasped
and grabbed Dee by the arm, dragging her away from her conversation.

"What?" she asked, exasperated.
"Dee, look at that woman--no, don't look now, don't look now--haan, now look."
She did, and looked back at me, rolling her eyes. "Yes?"
"Dude, that's Marisa Tomei."
"No, it's not." She looked again and gasped too. "OH. MY. GOD."
"Yup."

My dilemma was now complete. This was a story worthy of a full party page spread. This was a story my editors should hold the press for. (We were an afternoon paper, so often the party reporters returned late at night and filed whatever they had). And I was a) minus a photographer and b) anxious not to draw attention to Ms. Tomei, just in case anyone else should see and ruin my perfect exclusive. I whispered to Dee not to call too much attention to it, and called my editors. "There should be our freelance party photographer there," I was told, "Ask him to shoot her."

I found the freelance guy--this weird effeminate chap, who was involved in a battle of power with me over my desk. See, he got the desk I used during the day at night, and being one of the youngest reporters, I was also in charge of the television listing pages, which meant huge dossiers from all the channels lay all over my desk. I called it my open plan filing system, he called it a mess, and often, I came in in the morning to find all my stuff in the trash, because he was a "creative person who could not work with untidiness." We both yelled and complained and bitched, our editor patted us both on the back and told us to live with it. Anyway, tonight he was there and charming, because I was the creature of power. "Who is that?" he murmured to me after a "Hello, sweetie!" which made my eyes widen in disbelief. "Marisa Tomei," I whispered back, "Famous actress, Oscar winner, get a good picture."

At the cocktail party, Dee and I managed to corner Marisa Tomei, who was once more standing by herself, with a glass of wine in her hand. I asked her the usual, "How do you like India? And Delhi? And what have you done so far on your trip?" before breaking down and saying, "I am SUCH a huge fan of your work."

"Thank you," she said, smiling. She was really very nice, and close up, even without makeup, very pretty.

Think of a good movie, eM, think of something to say about her work. No, NOT What Women Want, something where she had a substantial role.

"I loved you in The Guru!" I blurted out, "I've seen it like five times!"

Her eyebrows rose, but she smiled again, "I'm glad you liked it."

Then we talked about shopping in Delhi and where she should go, and I exited, still riding high on my neat little coup. "Dude," said Dee, "The Guru?" "I couldn't think of anything else!" I said defensively. "Erm... How about the role she actually won an Oscar for? My Cousin Vinny?" "Crap," I said.

And there's my party favour story. Won me much acclaim too. Oh, and in case you were wondering, it did run as a full party page spread and no one else had it and I got calls asking for her number and/or email address for weeks. Which also I had forgotten to get. I was so much younger then, what can I say?

Because I heart the internet. But you already knew that

Some general silliness seemed called for. It's one in the morning, and eM is skinnier and uncomfortabler than she was yesterday. Why this? Because it seems Mouse's dysentery was catching, or something. I know, I know, it's not possible to catch dysentery, but I've been so ILL all day, accompanied by violent shivering, blocked ears and the complete and utter lack of desire to pull myself out of bed. (Okay, the last one could be put down to many other factors, including the fact that I'm just plain ol' lazy, but I mean I couldn't pull myself out of bed for long enough to even move to the couch and watch lovely Thursday night television. AND I've completely lost the desire to socialise. If that's not a serious sign, I don't know what is.) Anyhoo, I'm off to see the doctor tomorrow, and go on lovely lovely antibiotics that will clear me up--this is probably my punishment for waving my hand about and going, "Hmph. Americans. They just can't stand this country."--but the good news is, all this sickness has led to complete nonchalance about the other areas of my life, because I'm so busy focusing on how to make it STOOOOOOOOOOP. Ow.

Moving on, here is my little frivolous heart, bared for all to see. I think I'll call it My Internet Addiction. Duh.

You could be my Facebook boy,

You could be my status message,

You could be my late night MSN,

You could be my longest Gmail conversation,

You could be my internet addiction.

You could be my Orkut relationship status,

You could be my tagged photograph,

You could be my Limewire download,

You could be my Stumbleupon stumble,

You could be my internet addiction.

You could be my iTunes most-played,

You could be my Firefox widget,

You could be my Google search,

You could be my Wikipedia wiki,

You could be my internet addiction.

You could be my Blogger compose page,

You could be my last login,

You could be my word verification,

You could be my HTML,

You could be my internet addiction.

IMPORTANT EDIT: My heart is officially broken. Delhi is dead to me. It's the end of an era. Sigh. Oh TC, TC, of memories and of sighs, of madness and kisses by the bathroom, of knowing all the bartenders, of having somewhere to drink till THREE in the morning, of being able to sit by yourself and not be bothered, of meeting everyone I knew in the same place, of growing up.

Does this mean we're all grown up now?